


And Let Me See Humanity (In All Its Darkest Colors)

by Jen425



Series: And The Virus Of Our Word Is Thus Survived [1]
Category: Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Tokusatsu
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Medical Torture, Mental Breakdown, Parad (Kamen Rider Ex-Aid) Needs A Hug, Torture, Unethical Experimentation, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25612393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: Maybe it says everything that his first experience is pain (or maybe it’s just an excuse).
Series: And The Virus Of Our Word Is Thus Survived [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659322
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	And Let Me See Humanity (In All Its Darkest Colors)

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to my friend Writing_in_SIN I’d been working on this for a while but NEVER would have finished this without chapter seven of her Fic “A Score of Checkpoints”.

He comes into the world and his first experience is pain. (No… that’s not right. He  _ had _ existed, he’d been. One-and-two. Somehow, yes, he would be two-and-one, but this… This isn’t how this was supposed to  _ go _ .)

Or maybe it’s his last experience as  _ part of _ .

One-and-two.

_ (Both.) _

They’re doing it  _ wrong _ .

He can’t scream.

Nonetheless, the first sound he hears with his own two ears is screams. They hurt him. They’re screaming.

He hears it like one would underwater, however. Distantly.

He didn’t separate himself; he wasn’t ready.

He collapses.

  
  
  


He is not the one who wakes up in a hospital, that is Hojo Emu, that is someone kind and human and perhaps stronger. He is not Hojo Emu, he is not even M.

Not anymore. Not alone.

He wakes up on a metal slab, and his hands and feet are tied.

(He is… he is finally himself, but he is half of who he was.)

He is terrified.

They begin the tests. Different scientists, new scientists. He learns just what he is.

He learns pain.

The first time they cut off his arm, he screams. The first words he hears about himself are “it’s just an AI, right? Besides, it can probably regenerate.”

“That’s what we’re here to find out.”

Things get hazy after that.

  
  
  


He’s lonely. The pain becomes a background noise, no matter how much it never stops hurting and because it simply  _ never ends _ , but that remains true. He isn’t supposed to be himself, he’s one whole half.

It hurts. Why is he alone?

He always comforted the other. Himself. Emu? They both always comforted themself. Each other.

The pain is always there. He thinks…

He doesn’t like this.

He closes his eyes, too tired anymore, to cry, and he doesn’t hear the sound of “game over.”

(Maybe it says something of his strength, that even Game Over doesn’t quite kill him enough not to feel his other half.

Or maybe it says something about his existence, that he’s just a parasite, that he needs Emu.

He doesn’t know.)

  
  
  


He learns about himself in overhead snippets. He knew he was not human. But he is a virus. The Computer and not-quite-living kinds. He is the original.

He is the progenitor of destruction, perhaps.

Coded off video games.

He’s a part of a game.

_ Game Over _

He doesn’t have anyone to rescue him.

_ Game Over _

They’re hurting him. The humans are hurting him.

_ Game Over _

Doesn’t that make him the protagonist? Doesn’t that mean he should fight?

It  _ hurts. _

He wants to get out, but these new torture devices, these new bindings of Black lightning and something to the left of familiar, stop him. He does, nonetheless, think he can.

But all it takes to think it, to remember why he can’t.

  
  
  


Who is he? He isn’t Emu, and he’s not M without being one-and-two. He’s a game character, but he can’t recall his game. What was his role? Is he something special?

He isn’t human.

He’s a computer virus made manifest, a human virus who is alive. A game character with no game. He’s one whole half. He’s a hundred impossibilities.

He’s a hundred paradoxes and yet not quite whole.

Paradox.

  
  
  


Parado.

  
  
  


(One of his few certainties: humans did this to him.)

  
  
  


“I think there’s little else we can from dissecting it,” a scientist says. “The cords that we’ve made block its abilities, and it no longer attempts to speak.”

…Parado, at present has no throat, and he could not speak if he wanted to. He can never see the shadowy benefactor of this world of pain he had been dragged into.

“Then I guess I have my information,” the benefactor says. “And you have served your purpose.”

He doesn’t hear the rest. He drifts out.

  
  
  


He wakes up, alone and untied, and he stands on shaking legs he’s only used once before, for mere moments. They’re longer than they were, when he was one-and-two.

But he supposes he never will be, again. Dying… they said it fully separated a patient from host.

He’s died plenty.

(Why couldn’t they have just killed him one more time, then he’d be all healed up.)

He can still feel Emu, but he can’t reach him.

He stumbles, again, through a now abandoned lab. It knocks down a pile of papers, and… a phone?

He picks it up, and he keeps going until he collapses.

He doesn’t realize who he’s calling until he does. The closest figure of comfort he’d ever known.

“Hello?”

“I—” it’s the first time he’s heard his new voice do something other than scream or whimper or beg. And with that thought he breaks down crying. Everything still  _ hurts _ and now he’s free, but he’s  _ alone _ , and he doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know what to say. How to explain, when even he doesn’t quite know.

And he  _ hurts _ .

“Are you okay?” The doctor asks. “Do you have the right number?”

Doctor Kyoutarou doesn’t recognize him.

Of course he doesn’t. He’s Emu’s.

He doesn’t know Parado.

“I’m sorry,” Parado says, after what feels like forever. “I shouldn’t have called.”

“It’s alright,” Doctor Kyoutarou says. “What’s your na—”

Parado hangs up on the phone and crushes it.

And then he cries again until he passes out.

  
  
  


He wakes up to see a man in a black business suit.

“So that’s where he put you,” he says, and his look is dangerous as he grins psychotically down at Parado, who can’t help but try and move back against the floor.

It’s easier than was. He must be regenerating.

“My creation…” the man says. Wait no. Parado recognizes this man.

Dan Kuroto, heir to Genm and a famous game designer.

He’d made Parado. He knows who hurt Parado.

Someone hurt him, called him a thing. So does this man.

Humans hurt Parado. Humans don’t care about Parado.

“Come with me,” Dan Kuroto says. “And be a part of my  _ ultimate  _ game. One everyone will become forced to participate in!”

Everyone, huh?

Well, Parado is a virus.

He forces himself to standing, and he smiles.

“Sounds fun.”

But he’ll be the  _ player _ .

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @flaim-ita


End file.
